


Leaving

by olivemartini



Series: the heavy hearts we hold together [12]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-22
Updated: 2017-07-22
Packaged: 2018-12-05 11:25:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11577117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olivemartini/pseuds/olivemartini
Summary: She's packing up her things.Beatrice hadn't expected to feel sad, considering this was where she almost got killed, but she does.  And she'd be lying if she said that part of that didn't come from the worry that after she leaves, she won't be seeing Spencer again.





	Leaving

**Author's Note:**

> Maybe read the rest of the series before you go to this one?

She's packing up her things.

It's funny how much you can accumulate over a matter of a few short months, but here Beatrice was, rummaging through drawers and lifting up piles of folders in search of the stray belongings that had made their way into her temporary home- a notebook, mugs that she never washed the coffee out of, pens, a couple stray sweaters that had slid between the desk and the wall.  She's down to just the things she meant to bring, now, placing them all carefully in the box she had brought from home- the photo of her and her sister when they went to the beach after she graduated college, a rosary that had been hanging from Garcia's lamp, a pillow that was incredibly useful during some of the longer nights here.

Beatrice ran her hands over the keyboard, feeling the place where she had been entering in all those complicated key strokes and working to save the day.  She had liked being a part of this, she admitted, liked having the knowledge that she's doing something to fight the darkness and that one day, if they all tried hard enough, they might actually get to a place where they can see the light.  The only problem is that she can't handle the parts where the darkness wins, when you can't save the day and the search results don't turn up in time, when you have to go home and spend all night dreaming of a life that could have been.

A life that could have been but didn't, because in some way or another, you failed.

"It was good to be back,"  She murmurs, and doesn't feel silly at all when she lays her hand on the computer monitor just to feel the warmth and the electric hum.  Technology was good to her, and these computers were her friends, much in the way that Reid couldn't help but get attached to all those books piled around his apartment.  

Beatrice digs in her purse, brings out the tiny plastic bee she had found staring up at her from a coffee shop counter.   _Save the Bees,_ the sign had been proclaiming, with something about the proceeds going to one charity or another intent on saving the world.  She had thought it was funny, so she bought it and brought it here to add to Garcia's collection, hoping she would get the joke.

 _Don't forget me,_ she thinks, when she walks out of the room and back into the bright light of the bull pen, swallowed up by the hugs and good byes awaiting from the team.

Spencer didn't stay to walk her out.

 

 

 

When there's a knock at her door that night, she's expecting Reid, so maybe that's why it takes her longer than normal to react to an armful of Garcia.

"Oh, my gosh."  She was just like Beatrice had remembered, a whirl of colors and emotions.  She wasn't sure that she had time for an excited Penelope Garcia, but you never get a say in things like this.  "Hotch just told me what happened.  What happened to you because you were filling in for me, and I had  _no_ idea!  All that information they were having my perfectly painted fingertips process, and no one thought to tell me that my team was under attack!"

 _Twice,_ Beatrice thinks of saying, remembering the incident on the bank steps, but Garcia probably knew about that one already.  "I'm okay.  I'm fine, really."  She pulls her hair back to show the last remnants of a fading bruise.  "Nothing more that this.  Not even a scratch."

"Okay, do not even pretend that there isn't any lasting psychological trauma, or something."  Garcia waves her hands, possibly to encompass the greatness that was that something, then clomped across Beatrice's kitchen to pour herself a cup of coffee that Beatrice had really been intending on drinking herself.  "And I'm not leaving until you tell me about it."

Garcia sat herself at the counter, and Beatrice stared, wondering why she ever thought that agreeing to take the job in the first place.  But it's hard to say no to Garcia, especially when you know that she does what she does because she truly thinks its the best thing for you, even if it wasn't.  And it got a lot easier to talk once they switched to drinking wine instead of coffee.  

"Did you see the bee?"  Beatrice giggled, suddenly finding the little gift she left a lot more amusing.  She wasn't used to being drunk, but she thinks that today she might have come close.  Normally she just has enough to take the edge off.  "It was funny, wasn't it?"

"Yes!"  Garcia slammed her palm down on the table, making the stack of dishes rattle.  "I saw it, and I thought of you, and then Hotch told me what happened, which is why I needed to come and make sure that you were  _okay_."

Garcia wasn't as tipsy as Beatrice.  Or if she was, she was a surprisingly single minded drinker.  "I'm fine."  She dumped her salt shaker out onto the table, tracing patterns in it with her finger.  "I think I'm going to miss it, though."  Beatrice isn't going to miss it exactly, but she does want to keep going out for drinks after long cases and having dinners at Rossi and hearing news about Henri from JJ.  And she'll miss Spencer.  She always misses Spencer.  Maybe all she really wanted was more friends.  "Reid didn't even say good bye to me."

She was pouting.  Garcia was good about not making fun of people when they do stuff like that, and reached across the table to take her hand in hers instead.  "Maybe it wasn't good bye to him."  She says, and Beatrice clings onto the idea like its the only thing that might save her.  "Maybe it's just the start of something."

 

 

The second time someone knocks on the door, long enough later that Beatrice had actually started to fall asleep and get sober again, she's pretty sure it's Reid.  She's a little mad that he made her wait this long before he came to see her, but that disappears when she sees him standing in her doorway.

He looks just like he did that first day, shoulders hunching in on himself and hair all a mess and his fingers  _tap, tap, tapping._ Anything she might have wanted to say to him melts away, and she steps aside instead, letting him walk in to her apartment.  Beatrice expects him to go pour himself a cup of coffee like he always does, but he doesn't, just turns to her like he's preparing himself to do something awful.

"We're not co workers anymore."  The words are loud in the apartment and somehow meaningful, but Beatrice can't focus on anything other than the shadows under his eyes and his  _tap, tap, tapping._

 _What a mess we are,_ she thinks, reaching out to take his hand for no other reason than to keep his fingers still.  "No."  She whispers it, taking a step closer, but still far enough away that he could stop her if this wasn't what he wanted.  "We're not."

It's easier than she thought it would be to step forward, to step into him and let him bend down to meet her halfway.  Beatrice had thought a lot about kissing him, but only as to what would happen after- if things would change, if it would mean the start of something or the end, if he would even want to kiss her as much as she wanted to kiss him.  She had given no thought to the actual act, of his lips on hers and his hand in her hair and the realization that even though he's not much for physical affection, he's very good at this.  

He's smiling when they move away, her breathing hard and staring at him like he's the answer to everything she ever wanted.  And he's looking back at her like he did back after the Larry Whitt incident, like if he died for her today it might be worth.  "I can't promise I'm not going to run away."  His voice was quiet, thin and pleading in the aftermath of what they had done.  It didn't really fit the situation.  She wants to make it go away.  "But I can promise I'm always going to come back."

"Good."  She moves towards him again, because they've wasted too much time already, and if there's one thing that these past few weeks have taught her, it's that you shouldn't take anything for granted.  "Because I'm not scared anymore."

 

 


End file.
